17 Jan
2003
17 Jan
'03
4:16 a.m.
Megan said:
The problem is that the "theft" argument assumes that EVERY copy = 1 lost
sale. This argument is total bullshit. Most people who copy
music/movies/whatever wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't copy it, so no
(or at best, very few -- FAR fewer then the number of copies that are made)
actual SALES are lost. (If you don't believe me, there has been a lot of
statistical research done that shows this; about the only contradiction comes
Ah, but why are you taking a copy? Is it perhaps because it has
value to you? That it entertains? If so, then someone had to
go through the process of creation to produce it. Not unlike
building a house. They deserve something to compensate them.
Yes, they do...but please see below...
that makes a copy of something *may* be depriving
an author of possibly
income, but if someone is too cheap or really can't afford to buy it in
the first place, "lost income" is just BS.
That seems to be the general argument of the recent and current
generations... that just because they can't pay for something
shouldn't preclude them having it... "they are entitled to it".
WRONG! If it has value to you, then pay for it. from the RIAA's highly dubious closed-books
"research". Sorry I don't have
any sources at hand, but it's easy
to find them on the WWW.) No lost sales
means there's no equivalent to real-world theft, because no property is gone
(the author/copyright owner still has their copy) and no money has been lost
(because the copy wouldn't have been a sale, anyway).
- Dan Wright
(dtwright(a)uiuc.edu)
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan